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i) European Regional Needs 
  
The main European emphasis is placed on the management 
and conservation of known resources, rather than on the 
exploration and exploitation of new resources at national 
level. The two main exceptions to this general rule are the 
continental shelf areas and Greenland. The key missions of 
immediate interest within the European region are 
- Statistical information on agricultural products 
(e.g. crop inventory, yield prediction for key crops, 
forest inventories) 
- Land use classification and mapping 
- Water resources management (e.g. snow melt, soil 
moisture, storm run-off) 
- Coastal zone surveys (e.g. continental shelf operations, 
traffic monitoring, sea-ice, oil pollution, fisheries) 
- Monitoring of the Northern polar regions (e.g. Green- 
land, ice surveys). 
ii) Development Aid Programme 
  
The provision of financial and technical assistance to 
developing countries, either through bilateral agreements or 
via international bodies such as the United Nations and its 
specialised agencies, has long been an important element of 
European foreign policy. The potential importance of 
satellite remote sensing data to developing countries is now 
widely recognised. Key applications of these data are 
- Sustained production of biomass (food, fibres, animals); 
- Mineral exploration aimed mainly at providing sources 
of foreign currency to fund development programmes ; 
- Disaster warning and damage assessment. 
Two key features of most of the above applications are 
the dynamic nature of the measurements to be made, and the 
worldwide scale of interest in the information acquired. 
These two factors will necessitate the development of low 
earth orbiting satellites that are capable of ensuring near 
global coverage, and providing high spatial resolution data 
in a number of spectral channels extending from the visible 
to the microwave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. 
System studies carried out by ESA have indicated that as a 
first step in meeting European requirements satellite systems 
for both land and ocean applications will need to be develo- 
Ded (fic. 1).